Month: March 2016

Every once in a while, it pays to go back and read the notorious reality-based community comment again. Actually, today might be a good time to go back and read the whole October 17, 2004 New York Times Magazine article by Ron Suskind that made this quote famous.

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

It’s widely accepted at this point that Karl Rove was the “aide” who said we’re an empire now and we don’t have to make any effort to discern reality. But it’s the second half of the quote that interests me this morning.

And that’s because it seems to fairly well describe how Donald Trump has seized control of the Republican Party.

Go back to the first Republican debates and remember how stunned Jeb Bush and the other participants were when Trump began violating all the norms that had built up in the television age around how to behave in a presidential debate.

Trump would say things that were outrageous, implausible, risible, ridiculous, facially false and easily debunked…but this didn’t really separate him from his competitors. The whole Republican Party has adopted a post-truth ethos.

What Trump did differently was to “act” and “create new realities” in the sense that people weren’t talking so much about the reality of what he had said but about the fact that he had said it at all. The news cycles didn’t even make much pretense about discussing the merits of what Trump was claiming. They “studied” what he did.

And then he “acted again” which “created other new realities” that the media could discuss.

Try as they might to get their message out to the voters, Trump’s competitors couldn’t get any oxygen.

And it’s a nice turnabout, really, because it’s analogous to how the emergent left-wing blogosphere felt about questioning the decision to invade Iraq in the 2002-2003 period. Instead of dealing with penis jokes, the antiwar left had to deal with color-coded terror charts and an endless parade of phony disrupted terror plots (which are still a problem, by the way).

You can pretty much say anything if you have near total control of what people are going to talk about. By the time anyone might get around to calling you on your b.s., the audience has moved on to discussing the latest threat or outrage.

So, the Republican establishment (and Karl Rove, in particular) has been hoist on their petard here by Trump’s success. Jeb Bush didn’t get taken down like a crippled wildebeest because his policies had no discernible relationship to reality. He was eaten by hyenas because his $32.5 million per delegate campaign was “low energy.”

Jeb Bush just got contact lenses and got rid of the glasses. He wants to look cool, but it's far too late. 1% in Nevada!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2016

It took a very long time for anyone in the Republican establishment to understand why someone was consistently drinking their milkshake.

When they finally figured it out, they told Rubio he could play the same game by accusing Trump of having small hands and no penis.

We’ll see what happens in Cleveland. Maybe Trump can be denied the nomination in some kind of replay of the Brooks Brothers riot on steroids. But I think they let Trump get too much of a head start.

Sound familiar?

In BooMan’s fp story – Neoconservatives Begin the Long March Back – not once was the magic word ISRAEL uttered … just unbelievable. Look at the crowd of the first 93 signatories: the worst of the worst of interventionists, warmongers, pro-Israel, anti-Iran crowd over the past decades. Most worrisome if they see the Democratic Party under leadership of Hillary Clinton as their vehicle to extens Pax Americana.

The first names I picked out right off-hand were:  
Daniel A. Blumenthal
Michael Chertoff
Eliot A. Cohen
Tom Donnelly
Daniel Drezner [update]
Eric Edelman
Niall Ferguson
Aaron Friedberg
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Robert Kagan
Philip I. Levy
Bryan McGrath
Everett Pyatt
Michael Rubin
Randy Scheunemann
Dov S. Zakheim
Philip Zelikow
Robert B. Zoellick

This is so very obvious with numerous links to the U.S. Navy [incidents of fame or infamy: Bay of Pigs invasion, Gulf of Tonkin false-flag, George H.W. Bush]  and U.S. Navy pilot John McCain. Just the name Randy Scheunemann should have been a red alert. None of these people are standard “conservatives” who were once rooted in the Democratic party and there should be no shelter for them by the Democrats in the 21st century. The legacy of president Obama would evolve into a wasteland of fear, terror and war. Who are we kidding for Christ’s sake? A few persons are deeply involved in the 911 Congressional Investigation and cover-up of certain displeasing facts. Truth once again becomes the first casualty towards another global war.

In the letter of the group’s declaration, obvious alert for major bullshit and 5 pinocchios award right off the bat:

His admiration for foreign dictators such as Vladimir Putin is unacceptable for the leader of the world’s greatest democracy.

We the undersigned, members of the Republican national security community, represent a broad spectrum of opinion on America’s role in the world and what is necessary to keep us safe and prosperous. We have disagreed with one another on many issues, including the Iraq war and intervention in Syria.

Not looking in the mirror, “national security” [thinking of Chertoff], all in agreement on policy in the Middle-East, staunch military support for ally Israel, patronizing friendly dictators and Gulf monarchies and a clear preference to bomb Iran. By definition these persons see in Hillary Clinton their favorite daughter to steer White House policy. Netanyahu has and would agree on all points.

○ Neocons Jumping Ship, Will Likely Vote for Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton promises to cooperate with Netanyahu if she becomes President   | Mondoweiss - Nov. 2015 |

As his visit to Washington approaches, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claque in the U.S. is getting noisier and noisier by the minute. And Hillary Clinton is outfront.

 « click for more info
Obama-Netanyahu meeting could benefit Hillary Clinton

There is also not a word about Palestinian suffering in Hillary Clinton’s piece in The Forward saying how she’ll reinvigorate the relationship with the Israeli PM as president: “How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel — and Benjamin Netanyahu”.

The WOTR statement was coordinated by Dr. Eliot A. Cohen | RightWeb |

Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has been an important supporter of neoconservative-led foreign policy campaigns. Sometimes touted as “the most influential neocon in academe,” Cohen had multiple roles in the George W. Bush administration–including advising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and serving on the Defense Policy Board during Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as defense secretary–and was closely affiliated with the circle of hawks who surrounded Vice President Dick Cheney.

In October 2014, the “liberal hawk” think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) announced that Cohen was joining the center as an adjunct senior fellow contributing on defense and national security issues.In announcing the hiring, CNAS President Richard Fontaine described Cohen as “one of the nation’s foremost thinkers and practitioners in national security affairs.” Michèle Flournoy [close advisor to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton], cofounder of CNAS and former undersecretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration, added that Cohen “has a deep understanding of policy issues as well as the larger strategic and historical context in which policy decisions are made.”

In November 2013, Cohen also joined the board of advisors of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a spinoff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Bryan McGrath, naval expert at the Center for American Seapower of the Hudson Institute

Bryan McGrath is the founding Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC (FBG), a niche consultancy specializing in naval and national security issues, including national and military strategy, strategic planning, executive communications, strategic communications and emerging technologies.

Prior to starting FBG, Bryan founded a national security consulting line of business for Delex Systems of Herndon, VA, where he directly supported a number of senior clients in the Navy and the Army.  Additionally, he provided critical insight on Navy policy and acquisition preferences to commercial clients, including major defense contractors and small technology firms negotiating the “post-earmarks” era.

The Hardliners Have Romney’s Ear

Everett Pyatt, Project for Defense Management and Acquisition Leadership Program, McCain Institute

The Navy is scrapping a plan to overhaul one of its 11 aircraft carriers. The Defense Department says doing that frees up money to spend on the Littoral Combat Ship program. Everett Pyatt is leader of the Project for Defense Management and Acquisition Leadership Program at the McCain Institute and a former assistant secretary of the Navy [nominated by president Reagan in 1984]. He’s writing in Real Clear Defense about the Navy’s budget plans.

One Whom the ‘Revolving Door’ Hit | NY Times – July 1986 |

Tom Donnelly,  Resident Fellow AEI and Co-Director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies

Thomas Donnelly, a defense and security policy analyst, is the co-director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI. He is the coauthor with Frederick W. Kagan of Lessons for a Long War: How America Can Win on New Battlefields (2010). Among his recent books are Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power (2008), coauthored with Frederick W. Kagan; Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (2007), coedited with Gary J. Schmitt; The Military We Need (2005); and Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (2004).

From 1995 to 1999, he was policy group director and a professional staff member for the House Committee on Armed Services. Mr. Donnelly also served as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is a former editor of Armed Forces Journal, Army Times, and Defense News.

To rebuild America’s military | AEI |  

○ Niall Ferguson married to Ayaan Hirsi Ali [AEI scholar]

The Next Breeding Ground for Global Jihad by Reuel Marc Gerecht

America ignores the rebels at its peril. Yet on the left and right, anti-interventionists argue against American airstrikes, or any serious military aid, because such assistance would abet al Qaeda-linked jihadists. Perhaps what these anti-interventionists don’t realize is that the president and Congress may have already done their part to create the most deadly Islamic movement since the Taliban merged with al Qaeda in the 1990s.

Social order in the Muslim world depends, as it so often does elsewhere, on older men keeping younger men in check. In Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban’s medieval mores–a zealously crude form of village Pashtun ethics–gained the high ground because older men and their moderating social structures had been obliterated over three decades by Afghan communists, Soviets and civil war.

…
To be sure, Syrian Sunni culture is vastly more cosmopolitan and urbanized than Afghan Sunni culture. Syria is where Arab Bedouins first became polished men of arts and letters and transformed Byzantine architecture into a Muslim motif that defined Islamic elegance for centuries. But the shocking satellite photos of a constantly bombarded Aleppo, the center of Sunni Syria since the 10th century, ought to warn us how quickly society can be transformed–no matter how sophisticated.

Though Arab Syrian nationalism is more solid now than when it was born 90 years ago, it isn’t nearly as deep as Syrians’ Muslim identity. And in times of tumult in the Middle East, Islam–and the ancient divide between Sunnis and Shiites–comes to the fore. Shatter Syria into fragments, and radical Islamists who appeal to a higher calling, just as they did in Afghanistan, are guaranteed to attract young men who yearn for a mission beyond their destroyed towns and villages. There may be as many as 1,000 Sunni rebel groups scattered across Syria, stocked with such fighters.

The Taliban played on tribal sentiments while always appealing to a post-tribal, Muslim conception of state. The Islamist fighters in Syria appear to be following the Taliban’s playbook. Loyalty among these men isn’t ultimately based on family, tribe, town or even country, but on the supremely fraternal act of holy war.

Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA operative, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is the author of “The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East” (Hoover, 2011)

Do breakthroughs mean the U.S. can do business with Iran? |PBS |  

Dov S. Zakheim

Dov S. Zakheim is a former Pentagon official who worked in both the George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations. His track record includes collaborating with a number of militarist advocacy groups–including the neoconservative Project for the New American Century and the Center for Security Policy–and working as an executive at a host of defense contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton and Northrop Grumman. Zakheim has also been a fellow at CNA Corporation (home to the Center for Naval Analyses), an adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a member of the advisory council of the National Interest, and a lecturer at numerous universities, including the National War College, Yeshiva University, and Columbia.

In 2011, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney named Zakheim as a member of his advisory team on foreign and defense policy. Joining Zakheim was a host of other former Bush administration officials like Michael Chertoff and Eric Edelman, as well as several high-profile neoconservatives, including Robert Kagan, Paula Dobriansky, Eliot Cohen, and Dan Senor.

○ Philip Zelikow, Executive Director 9/11 Commission
○ PNAC signatory Robert Zoellick “could get the top job” as Secretary of State in a potential Romney cabinet  

Lots of links to former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney … and we all know he was Binyamin Netanyahu’s favorite son in 2012!!

○ Mitt Romney backs Israel’s right to attack Iran | WaPo |
○ Adelson: Ousting of A President for Israel’s National Security (July 2012)
○ Money Can Swing the Vote – 2012

The cynical among us were not surprised that the day after HRC won multiple state primaries on Tues, DNC chairwoman and Congresswoman DW Shultz co-sponsored a bill with the GOP to gut the new Consumer Protection Agency and delay new rules about Payday lenders.
After all, Shultz has done yeoman duty helping the Clinton campaign, creating so much tension on the DNC that one of the vice-chairs resigned and endorsed Sanders. Now that Shultz’s work is coming to fruition, its time to strike while the iron is hot, attack a thorn in the side of her corporate paymasters and align herself with the Republicans.  The new rule would stop any Federal regulation of payday lending if there are state laws, no matter how slack those state laws are….as in Shultz’s state of Florida- where recent studies show there is a weakness in the law.  At huge costs.

What is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fighting that makes Shultz and her corporate paymasters frightened?  Take a look-
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/cfpb-finds-four-out-of-five-payday-loans-are-rolled-over-or-

renewed/

But you know, principles are fungible things.  So what if thousands are foreclosed, dispossessed, forced into years of debt servitude…as long as someone’s log gets rolled.

Expect a lot more from a new Clinton Admin. probably with Shultz in the Cabinet.

(But, there is pushback about HRC’s email server problems and many are pinning hope on Federal action; just like they are pinning hope on Trump’s University problems. don’t count on it.).

R

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/debbie-wasserman-schultz-paylenders-cfpb_us_56d4ce38e4b03260bf77

e8fc

Recent Pew info-
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/collections/2014/12/payday-lending-in-america

By the end of August 2012, Steve Benen had documented 533 lies that Mitt Romney had told on the campaign trail. The general election is traditionally considered to begin in earnest after Labor Day. I’m sure Romney topped 1,000 verifiable lies by the time Election Day eventually came.

Having set the land-speed record for a politician telling lies, he’s really in no position to comment about Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness or Donald Trump’s character.

In the normal course of events, it’s a very bad sign when a witness is granted immunity by prosecutors. Unless a witness is likely to assist in a successful prosecution, there’s not much reason to shield them from accountability for anything they may have done wrong. So, naturally, it’s catnip to the press that the Department of Justice has made an immunity deal with Bryan Magliano, a former State Department staffer who helped Hillary Clinton set up a private server in her New York home.

This case could be a bit different than normal, though. It’s not at all clear that the prosecutors in this case are motivated to bring charges against anyone. In fact, the default presumption should probably be the opposite. They do, however, have an obvious motivation for closing the investigation sooner rather than later.

The inquiry comes against a political backdrop in which Clinton is the favorite to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency…

…Former prosecutors said investigators were probably feeling the pressure of time because of the election. Take action before the election, they said, and you risk being perceived as trying to influence the result. Take action after and face criticism for not letting voters know there was an issue with their preferred candidate.

“The timing is terrible whether you do it before or after,” [Former federal prosecutor Glen] Kopp said.

This could be simply a matter of getting cooperation from a key witness in a timely matter so that they can clear Clinton of criminal wrongdoing as soon as possible.

And the immunity deal could be the price they have to pay to make this happen quickly.

On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong. Bryan Magliano’s lawyer is obviously looking out for his client’s interests and there must be at least some theoretical liability here. Most likely, the liability pertains to Magliano’s awareness of the law concerning the handling of classified information.

I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general of the intelligence community, has indicated that some of the material intelligence officials have reviewed contained information that was classified at the time it was sent…

So far, the Clinton Camp has insisted that the only classified information that has been found was classified retroactively. In other words, nothing has been found that was classified at the time it was sent. But I’m sure they’ll find at least a handful of exceptions to this considering the size of the trove of emails they’re inspecting. And that means that there was technical wrongdoing.

In a case like that, one issue is proportionality and another is consciousness of guilt. Either way, though, a cautious lawyer would want their client to be shielded from prosecution before they explained themselves to investigators.

My bet is that they’ll eventually announce some relatively small amount of classified material was mishandled, but they’ll decline to charge anyone with a crime and explain that there was no deliberate or conscious effort to do anything illegal.

That won’t satisfy critics, but it’s probably the correct move.

What we need are clear rules for how to handle classified material and mail in a digital age. We need this to protect our legitimate secrets and we need it so the people who serve in these top positions can have clarity about what’s acceptable and what is not.

BREAKING!!! HOTTEST THING EVER!!! NY Times:

I have been writing here for years about the ongoing PermaGov fix. It has…so far…broken down in the face of Tump’s truly virtuoso understanding of how to use the media for his own ends. But here it is, in all of its PermaFix glory.

A Stern Mitt Romney Attacks Donald Trump as `a Phony’ and `a Fraud’

The pot calling the kettle a piece of cookware. One fraud to another.

The best thing about all of this Trumpishness? It is pulling open the curtains behind which the little hustlers have been hiding since the JFK assassination and subsequent 50+ year coup. Mighty wizards? My ASS!!! More like little turdblossoms.

   

Eventually, even the dumbest marks begin to realize that they have been ripped off. When that happens, all hell breaks loose. Always and forever.

We are just about at that point now.

God help us all.

AG

Back when Rand Paul seemed like he might be a more popular politician, I spent some time thinking about what he’d need to do to win the Republican nomination. Obviously, if he was going to succeed, he was going to need a new coalition of voters. And, whenever a party adds a new kind of voter, it’s apt to lose ones that were previously in its camp. For Rand Paul, if he brought in non-interventionists, that was going to cost him the neoconservatives.

My point here isn’t that Rand Paul could have ever pulled this off and won the nomination. But I foresaw that, given a choice between Rand Paul and Hillary Clinton, neoconservatives would opt for Clinton.

And this isn’t a knock on Hillary Clinton or any kind of endorsement of Rand Paul. It’s really just a simple observation. If the Republican Party becomes an unfriendly host for interventionists, they will leave the Republican Party.

Perhaps I put that a little too strongly. Whether someone leaves a party or not usually depends on more than just one factor. For neoconservatives, however, foreign policy has always been their prime motivator for political action.

Much has been written about the genesis of the neoconservative movement, and I don’t need to rehash that here, but it’s important to remember that they began as Democrats. They broke with Democrats during the late-1960’s and early-1970’s over the war in Vietnam, relations with Israel (particularly the reaction to the 1973 war and its immediate aftermath), and posture towards the Soviet Union. For the Jewish members, there was also some backlash against what they perceived as anti-Semitism in the New Left, including from the Black Power movement.

Prior to these ruptures, however, they had been strong New Deal Democrats and supporters of the Civil Rights Movement.

Over time, neoconservatives have lain down with dogs and gotten up with fleas, and their betrayals of their liberal roots and initial embrace of multiculturalism are too numerous at this point to document. But these were often matters of making alliances of convenience rather than true sympathies. Neoconservativism arose in New York City intellectual circles, and they’ve never been truly comfortable with Redneck politics or values.

And, when they look at Donald Trump, a New Yorker who is the furthest thing from a Manhattan intellectual, they see way too much Redneck.

In crafting an open letter in opposition to Trump’s candidacy, they are demonstrating that they’re ready to bolt the Republican Party. And it’s not just because they dislike Trump’s very inconsistent isolationism. They don’t like his illiberal attitudes about race, religion, a free press and human rights. They don’t like his cuddly attitude toward Vladimir Putin or his insults towards Mexico’s government, and they are appalled by Trump’s inability to understand that anti-Islamism makes it impossible to have any allies at all in the Middle East. They also just have a visceral distaste for his anti-intellectualism.

Their itemized objections to Trump are things that most liberals agree with or mostly agree with.

Now, this presents more than one interesting avenue for discussion. A lot of people will focus on a simplistic dichotomy here. If neoconservatives are more comfortable in the Democratic Party, that’s an indictment of the Democratic Party. Basically, whichever party they choose is the lesser for it. But, as I’ve said, this is a more complicated defection (or potential defection) than that. War-Hawkery isn’t the only factor here, and Donald Trump often says things that are more bellicose and hawkish than anything a Democratic politician would ever say.

It’s easy to look at the neoconservative record of immorality, violence and failure during the Bush Era and turn them into caricatures of pure, thoughtless evil. If you do that, however, you won’t understand why so many of them are drifting away from the Republican Party.

So, one way of looking at this is to ask what it means from an ideological standpoint and how it might affect U.S. foreign policy and the politics of the Democratic Party, or the next (Democratic) administration.

Another way of looking at it is from a purely political point of view. What happens when a major party has the bulk of its foreign policy establishment either defect to the other side or sit an election out? What’s the political impact of that? Does it foretell a landslide election?

I’ll just say this: as I’ve tried to examine this crazy political environment, I’ve looked for signs of realignment. These are things I’d expect to see if there is going to be a landslide election. One of the things I thought I might see is a mass defection of neoconservatives. I initially thought this would only happen if Rand Paul somehow caught fire (which I never thought was likely), but I’m seeing it now with Donald Trump.

And, frankly, the reasons are quite a bit deeper than they would have been with Rand Paul. With him, it would have been almost exclusively about foreign policy. With Trump, it’s about much more than that. It’s about basically every value they hold dear.

Authoritarianism?? Can’t believe it, look at history how fascism rises. It enters a vacuum where political parties fail in their responsibility. See also Marx and communism in the 19th century, socialism in the 20th century and social revolution in the 21st century. Making corporate power “people” and taxation/flight to tax havens leads to greater inequality of income and wealth concentration. The rise of Trump & others in Europe is to preserve the white “culture” and the religious component of Judeo/Christian “moral values”.

The project “Islamophobia” is bearing fruit across the western world. The attack of 9/11 and the violent reaction by the US and allies to invade and occupy Iraq has furthered the cause of “Clash of Civilizations.” Neither the Islam of Saudi Arabia, the Orthodoxy in Israel, universal Catholicisn of Rome, Putin’s “authoritarianism” or fundamental evangelicals of the US are a “civilized” people and well represented by its democratically elected leadership. George Bush was clear when he [mis]spoke of a Crusade against violent Islam with supercharged devastation and abuse of every human right normally expected from a world leader adhering to International law and universal principles of mankind.

Most interesting which European political leaders send congrats to the election sweep by Donald Trump on Super Tuesday on March 1st …

Congratulations @realDonaldTrump ! by Geert Wilders (PVV)

 « click for Wilders' US speech
Wilders: "Eigen volk eerst!" [Bashing Islam - Holland for the Dutch]

○ Jean-Marie Le Pen @lepenjm

Si j’étais américain, je voterais Donald
TRUMP… Mais que Dieu le protège !
[If I were American, I’d vote Donald
TRUMP … but God bless him!].

○ Geert Wilders @geertwilderspvv on Dec. 7, 2015

I hope @realDonaldTrump will
be the next US President.
Good for America, good for Europe.
We need brave leaders.

○ UKIP tweets about Trump by UKIP webmaster

. @Channel4News doesn’t even disguise
its bias against @realDonaldTrump
‘Brace yourself’ for more of their crap
when he becomes President.

Turnout down in Democratic Super Tuesday contests

Most of the Democratic primaries were not very competitive on Super Tuesday and predictably the turnout was far below previous high marks, which were almost all set in 2008. However, in Massachusetts, where both Clinton and Sanders ran a vigorous race, the turnout was not that far off the state’s 2008 Democratic presidential primary record. But in most of the southern states, where voters could cast ballots in either party’s primary, more were drawn to participate in the GOP contest.

 « click for more info analyzing social media
Turnout by Democrats down in non-competitive states. (PBS)

Nigel Farage: I share concerns with Donald Trump

Nigel Farage has said that he shares concerns about an out-of-touch political class with the controversial Republican Donald Trump, during a speech in the US in which the Ukip leader also warned about the security risk posed by immigrants.

Farage made the comments [on July 2015] at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank in Washington DC.

He added: “I do think some of the things he’s picked up on in the last few weeks are very similar to the kind of things we’ve picked up on in British politics – the feeling that there is a centralised bureaucracy in Washington, maybe not connecting with some of the concerns of ordinary people.”

○ Farage, unlike Trump, is not an out-and-out racist thug

Trump, who is running to be the Republican presidential candidate, attracted comparisons with Farage after causing controversy by suggesting that Mexican immigrants include rapists and that they bring drugs and crime to the US.

Trump ‘wrong’ on Muslim ban: UKIP’s Farage

Love of Geert Wilders for Netanyahu
○ Dutch MP in Tel Aviv: Palestinians Should Go Home to Jordan

Funding for the one-member party PVV of Geert Wilders from the US pro-Israel community:
○ Geert Wilders a Likudnik sponsored by Daniel Pipes

○ Has Islam-bashing tarnished ‘tolerant Britain?’
○ This monster called Europe
○ Hannah Arendt’s critique of human rights – The Origins of Totalitarianism

Pardon my crappy phone link, but I recommend opening this song in another tab while reading this, if possible.

https://youtu.be/QhOG42ADtGo

I don’t usually write here, but this is something I thought very much worth sharing.

The outpouring of energy, creativity and optimism the Bernie Sanders supporters are generating on my social media feed is kind of out of this world. There’s a Bernie Sanders Air Jordan silhouette. People are making a lot of their own really sweet fashion campaign art and t-shirts and buttons. They don’t seem to think they’re going to lose. It’s not that I think Sanders will get the nomination, but these are mostly people I know and not all of them are what I would call super political types. More than that, though, I think the aging Democratic party has no idea what’s going on in the younger third of the population.

A friend of mine tossed up the album art where this song is from that you are hopefully listening to on her Instagram.  She said it fit her mood she was so pumped Bernie had carried Minnesota. This is a thirty something mom, and she’s not that unusual. If you’re in your 60s, this song might be hard to listen to. My friend might have been dancing with her toddler.

From what I can see, the vast majority of people under 45 are solidly with Bernie Sanders. It’s kind of shocking, really. I think it has to do with Elizabeth Warren. When she went on the Daily Show, she changed things. There is now such a fundamental critique of the status quo that is so common among Millennials (and quite a few Gen Xers, not that anyone seems to notice) that it is going to get Bernie Sanders elected Vice President. Because this is not a joke, or a fluke. A lot of people are very serious about this, if in a fun loving sort of way.

And another thing, in another 8 years, this country is going to be very, very different politically.